ISRO's Gaganyaan mission to conduct key test next month: Report
Reuters. Currently, ISRO training four astronauts and looking to expand the cohort. The Gaganyaan mission is aimed at developing a human-habitable space capsule that will carry a three-member crew into an orbit of 400 km (250 miles) for three days, before returning to safety in a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
ISRO has said it will explore ways to achieve a sustained human presence in space once Gaganyaan is completed. “The team is aiming to test its crew escape system, which can be used to eject astronauts in emergencies, before undertaking a battery of other tests before the final launch phase. Safety is the most important thing we need to ensure," Hutton said as quoted by Reuters. About 90.23 billion Indian rupees ($1.1 billion) has been allocated for the mission, which comes after the space agency's historical landing of its Chandrayaan-3 craft on the lunar south pole.
While an exact timeline has not been shared, the mission is expected to be launched from the country's main spaceport in Sriharikota before 2024. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Gaganyaan Mission in 2018, during his Independence Day speech, with the target of achieving the mission by 2022. Due to the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21, the speed of the project was hampered and now the space agency aims to launch the project by the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025.
The mission entails sending a crew of three individuals into a 400 km orbit for a three-day mission, followed by their secure return to Earth, as stated on the ISRO's official website. The crew will conclude their journey by landing in the waters of the Indian Ocean. The mission encompasses the advancement of numerous essential technologies, such as
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